Tonight we were given the perspectives on UX in digital media by the Creative CEO of Engine, Robin Naughton. The lecture began with the list of Golden Rules and a discussion in relation to how the rules are used in her business. The Engine team begins each project with figuring out the goals of the customer – then it’s up to the team to (no specific order) designs, collaborates, documents, re-designs, re-collaborates, documents again and finally present and launch a polished project for the customer. This team effort and collaboration is important for creating a visual experience that will resonate with the user. One must frame the work you do in a competitive environment whether the competition is another agency or the competition between capturing customers.

The idea of transmedia also encompasses large complex stories with emotional characters that stand on their own which is a format that is also found in successful websites, movies and televisions shows. The more complex, the better, IF the story has rich, fully developed characters. No matter what the subject is, a good story should have a beginning, middle, and end. Not a cliff hanger (who shot JR), but a real end. In society today, we prefer closure…especially women. If I close my eyes, and think back to the evening that the final episode of The Sopranos aired, I swear I can still hear the screams of the entire country ringing in my ears as millions of people witnessed the last scene when it cut to a black screen. I know the writers were trying to create a water cooler conversation piece but, c’mon…really? I dedicated more than six years of my adult life watching this series, not to mention the added financial burden of carrying HBO on my cable for so long. The need to complete the story is essential and the new age of digital media will require that the story is told through a transmedia lens.

The internet is an easy way to make connections both good and bad. A quarter of the internet searches are users looking for video. What does that say to me, the user? The percentage of video searches makes two statements: video is the way of the future and it is also the way of the millennial generation. There are sites out there that cater to an older demographic are now integrating content with video however the younger crowd has grown up with video and they have used video for many years already.

An example of this can be found on the local news website where the video content is identical to the text posted below the video. Video has become so popular over the years and the next “big thing” will most likely come from a video content innovator. It’s here to stay but the audience needs to be engaged in the story for it to last longer than 5 minutes of popularity. The ability to stream live video is truly remarkable and I can’t begin to think of what will knock it off the podium.

There was an abundance of myths this evening from our guest speaker, a Historian by the name of Rick Shenkman. It was an eye-opening lecture and I enjoyed listening to him speak. Rick debunked several myths that I had believed to be true and, yes, I was a bit disappointed to hear about the staged footage of the Pearl Harbor attack. Even though it was staged footage, it does not change the emotion I felt when I visited Pearl Harbor myself. In my opinion, myth really doesn’t matter in the big picture of things because common sense would tell you that nothing is ever completely as it seems. We learn from our mistakes and pray that no one is sacrificed along the way. I imagine there are skeletons in the closet of America that we will never know of.

I don’t think that embracing myths are necessarily a bad thing because sometimes they help us feel better on the inside. If it weren’t for myths, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

Tonight’s class introduced us to a creative guest speaker by the name of Paolo Tosolini. Paolo and his creative team have developed an in-house video sharing site for employees. Why did they do this, you may ask? This Microsoft team had the forward vision to create a community of sharing and engagement.

To get things started, a blogging team was created. The bloggers were then equiped with basic video equipment and were expected to post blogs every month. Soon, the channel caught on and within three years, the channel has more than 20,000 informative how-to videos that can be shared within the company and to customers. All of this success comes from an initial $40 per person investment. What a great deal! There is no way that you could be able to outsource the type of detailed, specific information that his company blog has collected over the years.

An abundance of talent within the company has led some employees to develop into video series characters. This is a great idea and works perfectly for the Microsoft environment. Bravo!

Matt, the star of “Where the Hell is Matt” was here explaining the thoughtful process behind the construction of his narrative. The shots are not random and I learned that they were well thought out pieces but the emotion received by the viewer is real.

An example of this technique is used in his videos by limiting the number of people in the shot. By doing this, Matt is able to fill the scene with just enough people providing the viewer with emotions of happiness due to the fact that we can see the faces of the people dancing. Everyone is smiling and it looks like they are having a good time and that energy can be felt over the internet and sent to others as well.

Matt’s message is free, for now and it appears that he would like to keep it that way. I sure hope so!